


Reminiscences

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Family, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elderly pups tell stories to their extended family at Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminiscences

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

Remus gingerly lowered himself onto the sofa. Transformations for a seventy-plus werewolf were increasingly difficult. The three days between the full moon and Christmas had not allowed sufficient recovery time, but he’d determined to make the best of it.

The sturdy wing chair by the fire was very comfortable, he knew, but, if he sat there, then he wouldn’t be sitting next to Sirius. And, if he chose that chair, Sirius would insist on sitting by his feet. Not a wise thing for an old Animagus to do. One of the conditions Sirius had accepted as a price for returning from beyond the Veil was the halving of his life span. Aging like a Muggle had been further complicated by the residual effects of what twelve years in Azkaban had wreaked on the endurance of joints and muscles. Sirius had never completely overcome that torment. Of course, in typical Sirius fashion, he often refused to accept his limitations, only to complain about aches and pains the next day. For many reasons, Remus knew the sofa was the best choice.

They didn’t have many years left, he and Sirius. Though tinged with some regret, the thought didn’t frighten them because they knew that there was something beyond death. On this earth they’d endured great loss and suffering. They’d fought to live their lives with the same rights that everyone else had. It hadn’t been easy, but they had succeeded. 

Sirius had driven a ruthlessly hard bargain with the Ministry of Magic in ironing out an agreement to compensate him for his wrongful imprisonment. In addition to a hefty monetary compensation, it stipulated the Ministry would ignore any regulations governing werewolves with regard to their private lives. Of course, what he and Sirius considered private and what the Ministry considered private were sometimes two different things. However, Remus suspected that Sirius rather relished the occasional skirmishes they’d had with officials, especially as Sirius used the power of the pen to combat them. 

They had invested a good part of their money to start up Veritas, a monthly journal devoted to politics and public affairs. The years of corruption and mismanagement at the Ministry had given them and their staff plenty of fodder. A Divination expert couldn’t have picked a better time for their new venture. The public was no longer content to swallow the usual Ministry bilge that had so often been served up without question by The Daily Prophet. Voldemort’s return and eventual demise fueled a desire for truth and the realization by many wizards that all was not right with their world. Veritas’s circulation figures had exploded, and helped usher in a period of change in the hidebound and secretive government.

Their decision to have children also prompted battles with the Ministry. When Sirius had a child through the assistance of St. Mungo’s Office of Single Parent Births, the Ministry once again stuck its collective nose in their business. Sirius bit it off. He and Remus were quite capable of taking precautions to ensure Sirius’s son was in no danger when Remus transformed. Again they forced the Ministry to back down. A few years later, Remus went to the Single Parent Births office, and they’d added a second son to their family.

Xavier Aland Black, whose names meant “bright new house” and “bright as the sun.” Sirius had determined that he’d do everything in his power to ensure that his branch of the Black family tree turned its back on centuries of darkness. And Matthew Loman Lupin. This boy was truly a “gift of God” in Remus’s eyes. And he would be raised to be “enlightened,” not subject to ancient prejudices. Yes, they had been blessed with their sons, who had grown into fine young men.

There were others that he and Sirius considered family, whether the blood relation was distant or didn’t exist at all. It started with Harry Potter. Harry had lost most of his magical powers as a result of the final battle with Voldemort. He spent years soul-searching to determine who he was and where he fit, hovering between the Muggle and magical worlds. He lived with Remus and Sirius whenever he wasn’t off on extended travels alone. Harry had eventually come to terms with who he was. He married Ginny Weasley. He wrote his autobiography, which was a massive success world-wide in wizard circles. After that, he decided to devote his life to writing. Most of his works were Muggle fiction under the pen name James Evans. However, he occasionally contributed stories to Veritas.

Harry had taken awhile to regain his equilibrium, but he had found a measure of peace with Ginny, and their twins, Charlie and James. The Potters remained very close to all the surviving Weasleys, as well as the Longbottoms. As the years passed, and the next generation of children had grown up, holiday affairs had gotten more convoluted, what with the increasing network of family obligations. 

This year Remus and Sirius sat with some of their extended family in the Potters’ living room, digesting a marvelous Christmas dinner. Remus slowly looked at every happy face in turn. Matthew sat cross-legged on the floor next to his wife Emily, pregnant with their second child. Matthew cradled Rachel, their fourteen-month-old daughter, as she lay across his lap napping. On the other side of the Christmas tree, Xavier lay on his stomach watching solemnly as his own son, 4-year-old Antares, meticulously put together the pieces of a magical jigsaw puzzle. Xavier’s occasional helpful hints were greeted with glares from the boy, who quite clearly felt he didn’t need an authority figure to tell him what to do. Apparently, that particular family trait had been passed down from Sirius, along with the black hair and light eyes.

The day had been filled with comings and goings. James and Charlie, now in their last year at Hogwarts, had both gone off to spend some time with their girlfriends’ families, but had just returned home. Ron and Hermione Weasley had arrived for dessert, bringing two of their three children with them. Gwynneth, twenty-three and a fearless Chaser for the Hucknall Hawks, was deep in a discussion with Ron about how to beat the seemingly unstoppable Chudley Canons. Edward, twenty-one, was excited about his recent move to York to head up the newest branch of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. 

All of them were happy and healthy, filled with the excitement of being on the verge of new careers, contemplating marriage and children, settling into living normal adult lives. Lives that would certainly be touched with occasional sorrow and sickness, but lives that were free from terror and murder. This, Remus reflected, was the ultimate reward for what his generation had suffered. 

Amused, he watched as Charlie got some pointed needling from his cousins about how devoted he was to his girlfriend. Edward collapsed dramatically into a chair. “Tell us what lovely trinket you gave her to melt her heart.” 

“And how she swooned over your romantic gesture when she opened the present,” interjected Gwynneth.

“How your badly rhymed love poem made her smile.”

“And how you clumsily managed to ambush her under the mistletoe.”

Charlie denied all mushy sentiments, but his furious blush gave him away.

Remus decided to rescue the boy from his embarrassment. “It’s okay, Charlie. Telling someone how much they mean to you is never bad, even if you’re a bit of a sap doing it.”

“Absolutely. And you’ll both be much happier if you actually tell her without her having to pry it out of you,” Madeleine Black said with great dignity, which was undercut by the rude way she poked her husband with her toe.

Xavier looked up, affronted. “What do you mean? I say it all the time. Here. I’ll prove it. I love you.”

His wife laughed, her lovely heart-shaped face crinkling merrily. “Oh, you do now, but I practically had to beat it out of you with a broom when we were dating. You had an articulation problem back then.”

“It’s my Dad’s fault.” Xavier huffed, although he was obviously trying not to smile.

It was Sirius’s turn to be affronted. “Me? I’m always telling Remus how much I love him. And I did with you boys, too, until you transformed into pimply, surly teenagers who thought love was way too uncool. Silly prats.”

“Well, yeah, that’s just it. When you’re fifteen, you don’t want to see your parents mooning over each other.”

“That’s because your hormonally hyperkinetic thoughts led you to thinking about us having sex,” Remus said matter-of-factly. “We’re all lucky your brains didn’t explode out through your ears. Although, as I recall, Madeleine, I behaved much the same way as Xavier.”

“Really? You? You may not say it out loud as much as Sirius does, but it’s obvious from your gestures and your expressions that you’re still completely smitten with him.”

“Now, yes. But when we were eighteen and fresh out of school, I was much more reticent. Especially in the days before Sirius convinced me to move in with him.”

His eyes swept over the family once more, and with a smile, he began a story about a long distant time.

_”Brought you some chocolate, love.” The bag Sirius dropped on Remus’ tiny table thudded with its weight._

“It looks like you bought out the entire store. What am I going to do with all this?”

“Eat it, eventually.”

Somewhat irritably, Remus shoved the bag back in Sirius’ hands. “Well, take some for yourself and put the rest away. You don’t need to buy me chocolate every other day; I’m capable of getting my own.”

“You ran out after the last full moon.” Ignoring his lover’s testiness, Sirius opened the few cabinet doors in Remus’ cramped kitchen, which consisted of nothing more than an antique cooker, a box refrigerator, a tiny sink and two cabinets with shelves. A rickety table and two chairs were shoehorned into a corner. “And I see you haven’t bought any, not that there’s room for much more than a couple of bars in here.”

Remus recognized Sirius’s typical opening salvo in his battle to get Remus to move in with him. It always started with comments about his miniscule kitchen. Mentally, he gritted his teeth. He would not allow Sirius to goad him into another discussion about their living arrangements. Sure, this flat was a tiny dump. But, it was Remus’s tiny dump and he could pay for it, despite his iffy job situation. If he moved in with Sirius, he’d be admitting that he couldn’t make it on his own. 

He refused to live on Sirius’s charity. It didn’t matter that Sirius had been able to buy his flat outright with the gold Alphard Black had charitably left him. It didn’t matter that, economically, it made more sense for them to split the monthly bills. It didn’t even matter that they loved each other and spent a lot of nights together anyway. No, Remus refused to think along those lines. Yes, it would be cheaper. But he’d be proclaiming to everyone who knew of his lycanthropy that he was no different from any other werewolf; that he couldn’t support himself. And, Sirius, for all his intelligence, couldn’t grasp that concept.

But, to Remus’s surprise, Sirius did not launch into his patented “15 Valid Reasons Why We Should Live Together” routine. Remus eyed him suspiciously.

They decided to eat dinner at the Chinese place on the corner. When Remus insisted on paying the bill, Sirius put up no more than a token resistance. He didn’t even roll his eyes, although he knew perfectly well this was Remus’s way of paying for the chocolate.

And Remus knew he knew. As they walked back to Remus’s place, the werewolf pondered. Did Sirius simply want to avoid arguing tonight, or was this un-Sirius-like reticence a sign of a new tactic? Surely, he hadn’t given up on getting Remus to move in. Not Sirius, who was tenacious as a bloodhound on a scent when he truly wanted something.

“You’re pensive tonight,” Sirius commented.

“Oh, it’s nothing. I guess I’m a little preoccupied.”

“Hmmm.”

Once they returned to the flat, they talked about nothing in particular, but Remus felt on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He couldn’t quiet his inner speculation, even when Sirius pulled him into a tender embrace. Their mouths met in slow, deep kisses. Their bodies melded together. The heat of friction aroused many slumbering nerves, sending a warm tingling through Remus’s body, but he still couldn’t shake off the tension that gripped him. Was Sirius going to start using sex to try to sway him? Their lips parted and Remus sensed a different sort of tension in Sirius.

“What’s going on?” The handsome face and stormy gray eyes were clearly puzzled by something Remus was doing. Or not doing.

“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.”

“Something’s wrong. You act like you don’t want me near you. You’re frowning like I’ve committed some sin.”

“I’m not- You haven’t-I was just thinking about other things.” Too late Remus realized the immense tactlessness of that remark.

“I see.” Sirius pulled away from him. “Well, this has been coming for a while, hasn’t it? Maybe it’s best if I just go.”

“Sirius, wait. I-“

But, with a soft pop, Sirius had Apparated. 

What the hell had just happened? Remus was completely flummoxed. 

Over the next several days Remus tried to talk to Sirius. But, Sirius managed to evade him. Remus turned into a bundle of anger, confusion, and hurt. Was this some weird punishment for not moving in? Was Sirius taking himself away from Remus, as if he was a prize Remus could no longer have? Was Sirius manufacturing a way to get out of their relationship because he had given up on Remus ever changing his mind about moving in? But, he hadn’t been angry when he’d left Remus’s flat. He looked…pained.

Finally Remus decided to involve James. If anyone could decipher the unique workings of the Black brain, it was James. 

James, unfortunately, also proved hard to track down. With a growing sense of desperation, Remus Flooed to Lily’s flat. She made tea as he tried to explain the confusing situation in which he found himself. 

Thoughtfully, she sat down next to him on her second-hand sofa. “Did you talk to James?”

“I can’t find him. I can’t find either of them. Maybe it doesn’t matter; Sirius has probably sworn him to secrecy anyway. But, I don’t understand how everything went wrong. And if I don’t understand, how can I fix it, especially if Sirius keeps avoiding me?”

“Well, James may have been sworn to secrecy, but I certainly haven’t.”

Remus felt a surge of hope. “So you know what happened.” 

“I heard Sirius’s version, which is pretty close to your version.” She looked at him speculatively. “Do you love him?”

“What’s that got to do with anything? Yes! Of course I love him! He means more to me than anyone. I’d give my life for him.”

Her keen emerald eyes seemed to probe into his soul. “Then maybe you should tell him. At least once in a while.”

Remus looked at her blankly. “He thinks I don’t love him?” The thought had a horrible edge of finality to it, as if Remus had just been told that someone he cared for had died.

“He says you get angry with him over money issues because you think he’s trying to buy your affection. That you don’t want anything more from him and when he offers to share things with you like his flat, or his food or whatever, that you don’t see it as a gesture of love. He doesn’t know how to make you understand that he truly loves you. And, now he’s afraid that maybe he was wrong in thinking you love him.”

Remus was stunned. How could Sirius misread him so thoroughly? Shaking his head, the words poured out of him. “No. He’s wrong. Not wanting him to give me things has nothing to do with how I feel about him. It’s about me and who I am. What I am. I have to be able to succeed by myself in this world, even if only in a modest way. I need to prove that someone like me has things to give, things to contribute. I deserve a place in my own society that I can earn on my own without my friends giving it to me, however well-intentioned they are.”

“Your friends,” she echoed, with a slight emphasis on the latter word. “When was the last time you looked Sirius in the eye and said ‘I love you’?”

Remus drew a complete blank. His cheeks colored slightly with shame. “I don’t remember.” Vainly he sought an excuse. “It’s not something guys say a lot. Sirius doesn’t…”

His voice mumbled to silence. Sirius did say it fairly frequently. 

Lily squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe that’s where you should start to patch this up. Tell him. You don’t have to make some grand gesture or shower him with roses. Just tell him. Then maybe the two of you will be able to see each other in the proper light. You’ve got love as a foundation. Build on it.”

“How? He won’t have anything to do with me!”

Lily was the ideal co-conspirator. She planned an evening out for the four Marauders as well as several other friends from their Hogwarts days. It was a minor miracle considering everyone’s competing schedules of jobs and assignments for the Order of the Phoenix. But, she did it.

A local up-and-coming band called Dragonfire was playing at The Spotted Unicorn. They’d share a relaxed evening of talk, beer, and Dragonfire’s peculiar blend of Celtic-Muggle-traditional-Wizard music. Remus and Sirius would have an opportunity to start talking again on neutral ground. And, if the evening turned out right, Remus could seize the chance to say those three important words to the man he really didn’t want to lose.

To all outward appearances, it was a happy band of young people who took over one corner of the pub. In between sets, the air was filled with talk and laughter, as they had a lot of catching up to do. But, Remus felt a cool distance between himself and Sirius. He laughed and joked along with everyone else, but Remus was acutely aware that nothing remotely personal was shared between the two of them. And every time Remus maneuvered to sit closer to Sirius, the black-haired wizard managed to slip away to the gents, to the bar, to go speak to an acquaintance on the other side of the room. Remus felt like he was trying to catch smoke.

Dragonfire wrapped up a set, and Remus watched the lone woman in the band make her way off towards the ladies’ room. A desperate resolve swept over him and he jumped up from the table to follow her. He was aware of Sirius’s curious gaze following him.

Nervously, Remus hovered in the narrow hallway until the woman reappeared. 

“Excuse me,” he said. “May I ask you something?”

She smiled with a slight wariness. “I live with the bass player so I’m not interested in seeing other blokes.”

“Oh, no. That’s not it. Not that I don’t think you’re attractive. You’re very pretty.” He felt like the word “Moron” was scrawled in red ink across his forehead. “It’s just that...since Dragonfire does a lot of traditional music…I wondered if you might…’

“You want to request a song,” she cut into his rambling.

“Yes,” Remus sighed with relief at her rescue of him and managed to pull himself together. “I need to send a message to someone very special, someone who has doubts about my feelings.” He told her the song and was thrilled when she said it was actually in the next set. 

“I’d be happy to dedicate it to your girl. What’s her name?”

“Umm, actually, she’s a he.”

Her eyebrows arched slightly and then she grinned. “That works out perfectly. I won’t have to change the pronouns in the lyrics.”

Remus smiled back, relieved that it made no difference to her that his special person was another man. However, he wasn’t at all sure how accepting the rest of the people in the pub might be, and he didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment. “Would you please dedicate the song from Moony to Padfoot?”

When Remus returned to their corner he managed to grab a seat next to Sirius. Hazel eyes met gray, but before either could say anything, Dragonfire started to play. Remus had time to think about his request and felt almost dizzy at what he’d done. Merlin, either this would work or Sirius would think he was a total sap. Three songs into the set the woman on stage waved for silence. “I’ve been asked to dedicate this next song. This is for Padfoot from Moony.”

Dragonfire launched into an ethereal, dreamy rendition of a traditional ballad. The singer’s rich, haunting voice expressed a depth of longing and love in the simple words that Remus felt he’d never capture in his own speech. 

“Black is the color of my true love’s hair

His face so soft and wondrous fair

The purest eyes

And the strongest hands

I love the ground on where he stands

I love the ground on where he stands”

Cautiously Remus glanced at Sirius. He was staring back, lips slightly parted in a gentle expression of surprise, but the force of his molten silver eyes froze Remus to his seat. Not only was he incapable of moving, he wasn’t sure if those eyes would even permit him to breathe. 

“Black is the color of my true love’s hair

Of my true love’s hair

Of my true love’s hair”

Remus felt a hand fumble down his arm until it found his own hand. Long fingers delicately entwined themselves between his. The other people faded into oblivion. Only the two of them sat at the table, in the pub, in London, in the universe.

“Oh I love my lover

And where he goes

Yes, I love the ground on where he goes

And still I hope

That the time will come

When he and I will be as one

When he and I will be as one.”

They barely heard the remaining verses, lost as they were in each other’s eyes. Remus came back to himself as the song ended and felt a final flare of panic. He’d wanted to compose the perfect words to tell Sirius how much he loved him; something to shake the ground and rattle the stars. But articulation had fled. The best he could do was to lean in close to Sirius, shoulders touching, and say, “I love you with all my heart.”

The corners of Sirius’s mouth twitched and then his face lit with his smile. “Come home with me?”

Ignoring the rest of the world, the two rose from the table and disappeared into the night.

“Well done, Remus!” Hermione said emphatically, to a round of applause for the elderly lovers. “That was very romantic and not at all sappy.”

Sirius gave a doubtful shrug, which earned him a poke in the ribs from Remus’s elbow. “You told me how deeply touched you were about that.”

“Oh, I was, but I still had to work to convince you to move in with me. Don’t give the youngsters the impression that we rode off into conjugal bliss as a result of that song.”

“Well, yes,” admitted Remus somewhat sheepishly, “but that was because we were young and full of ourselves. We didn’t realize that we didn’t know as much as we thought we did.”

“Do you mean about each other or about life?” Asked James. He loved hearing these stories from the two men he considered his grandfathers.

“A little of both,” Sirius said. “Remus was right. I didn’t understand his feelings about making his own way. And he, knowing how impulsive I could be, couldn’t quite believe that I loved him to the very depths of my soul. Plus, he was too used to seeing me as a rather disorganized person who improvised as he went along. I had to prove I could be practical and sensible, like living on a budget and cooking edible meals.”

He grinned appreciatively at Ginny and Harry. “The meal we had today puts my early efforts to shame.”

“I know what that’s like. Today’s meal was nothing like that first dinner you cooked for me, eh, Em?” teased Matthew.

“Oh, God, will you never let me forget?” Emily mumbled, putting her hand over her eyes as if to shutter her embarrassment away.

Remus, Sirius and Xavier snickered, having heard many times of the burnt repast prepared by Emily, who had not bothered with recipes, thinking that all one had to do to cook a meal was to throw everything into the oven and turn it on high for an hour.

The younger Weasleys had never heard the story and insisted on all the details. Amid a great deal of chortling and unhelpful comments from the combined Blacks and Lupins, Emily recreated her culinary nightmare, a disaster of legendary status among her husband’s family. 

“All I had left in the house, once I destroyed dinner, was potatoes. So, I gave up and went to the Indian restaurant around the corner and got take-out.”

Remus sat up a little straighter. “You had potatoes? You never mentioned that before. And you didn’t use them?”

“What could I have done to make potatoes romantic?”

Remus turned to Sirius with a warm smile. “Well? Tell her what she could have done.”

Sirius’s smile broadened as the memory washed over him. “I did pretty much the same thing cooking a romantic dinner for Remus.”

_It was never a good idea to leave food roasting in one’s oven when called out to deal with Death Eaters. Why Sirius had thought that this unexpected Order assignment would go smoothly, quickly and according to plan when ever other assignment had exploded out of all proportions, he couldn’t say. Obviously he suffered from an impulsive, romantic streak that persistently believed, in spite of hard evidence to the contrary, that any plans made concerning Remus would flourish unhindered by the realities of life._

He was an idiot. Why Remus put up with him remained a complete mystery. 

Of course what was meant to be a quick reconnoiter with Fabian Prewett, turned into a running skirmish with several Death Eaters, which then turned into a small battle to protect a member of the Wimbourne Wasps, who’d had the temerity to marry a half-blood.

When it was over Sirius returned to his flat, dusty and bruised, and was assailed by the smell of burning. His heart in his throat, he burst into the kitchen to discover that his leg of lamb had charred beyond recognition. The vegetables cozily roasting together in the casserole dish now resembled a small plot of dirt studded with rocks.

A glance at the clock told him that Remus could arrive at any moment. Sirius yanked the refrigerator door open. Beer, butter, cream. That was it. He slammed the door closed and fumbled with the bread box. Empty. With a sense of dread, he tore through the pantry. Flour, sugar, tea, coffee, some unopened jars of jam. And a bag of potatoes. 

He couldn’t fall back on take-out. Not again. Not tonight. Remus was very close to agreeing to move in with him. Tonight was supposed to be the night he gave Remus that final, little push. 

And now his plans had literally turned to smoke and ash. He beat back the cold grip of failure that tried to strangle him. He was Sirius Black; a reckless rebel with vast capabilities to tackle the unexpected and make it bow to his will. He would not be thwarted by a lack of real food. Surely butter, cream and potatoes were enough to woo his Remus.

Sirius peeled the potatoes and set them to boil. He melted several sticks of butter and warmed the cream. He transfigured a Daily Prophet into a crisp, white table cloth and dug out some not- so-crisp napkins from a drawer. He set the table, checked the potatoes and paused, hands on hips, trying not to let the spark of desperation niggling at the back of his mind blossom into full-blown hysteria. 

Why did this happen tonight? He had planned everything so carefully with an eye toward banishing the remnants of Remus’s hesitations about moving in. A glorious meal, beautifully presented, along with himself, beautifully presented as well, and tonight Remus would toss his last hesitations out of the window. With a start, Sirius remembered he had yet to clean himself up. He dashed into the bathroom for a quick shower.

He’d barely had time to dry off and scramble into clean clothes when Remus’s voice from the living room announced his arrival. With a deep, calming breath Sirius walked to meet his doom.

“Potatoes?” Puzzled, Remus tried to look unobtrusively around the kitchen to see where the rest of dinner might be hiding. Sirius sometimes lost track of a ball or two when he was madly juggling too many things, but surely even Sirius wouldn’t think that a romantic dinner could consist of only potatoes.

However, the complete lack of other pots, along with the rather panic-stricken look in Sirius’s eyes, made Remus realize that his lover wasn’t joking. 

“This is a little odd, even for you,” Remus said.

“I’m sorry. I got called out. I left everything cooking because, like a complete dolt, I thought I’d be back in time and, Christ, I shouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen, sometimes I think I shouldn’t be allowed to use a wand, I can be such an absolute fool.” He paused for a breath. “I wanted tonight to be perfect, and instead, I burned it to a crisp.”

The lingering smell of burnt meat was now explained. Remus swallowed an impulse to laugh. Sirius looked so disappointed and so charmingly disheveled that Remus didn’t have the heart to tease him. Remus reached out to smooth some errant waves of black hair.

“Come on, dish it up. Let’s have a look at these romantic potatoes.”

Remus’s eyes met those of his lover, their gaze clinging together for a long moment as they relished the memory. 

“Well? How were they?” Emily’s impatient voice interrupted.

Remus debated how much more of the story should be shared.

“They were sublime.” Remus heaved a sigh of complete satisfaction. “Those perfect, earthy morsels nestled in our bowls, all comfortably smothered in butter and cream. Such simple ingredients, and yet the end result was as decadent as the richest confection imaginable.”

The expression on Remus’s face clearly showed his pleasure. The rest of his thoughts he decided to keep to himself. Some memories were only for him and Sirius to share.

_The potatoes were beyond sinful. The hot, firm, yet flaky flesh, cooked to perfection, practically melted in his mouth. The rich, warm blend of silky cream and slippery butter swirled around the simple starch and turned it into ambrosia. Remus felt like crawling into his bowl and slathering his own flesh with the thick, heavy sauce. He reached out his finger to catch a bead of cream that lurked in the corner of Sirius’s mouth. He licked it off. He watched Sirius watching him. Then it hit him - how thoroughly Sirius this all was. Take what was there, improvise, create something wonderful out of it, and sometimes end up with unexpected results. In his worry and haste Sirius probably hadn’t thought about other things that could be deliciously covered with butter and cream. But, Remus would enjoy showing him._

Sirius slipped his hand into his lover’s, bringing him back to the present. “The morale of the story is that good intentions can sometimes save the day.”

“Oh, that’s all well and good,” interjected Gwynneth, “but did Remus agree to move in with you?”

Remus’ smile glowed as brightly as the firelight glinting off his silver hair. “He swept me off my feet. I moved in two days later.”

Applause and cheers broke out.

“What about you, Dad?” asked Xavier over the hubbub. “Did Remus ever sweep you off your feet?”

“He does that regularly. I’m the luckiest, most blessed man alive” Sirius laughed and scooped up Antares, who, temporarily bored with his toys, whined for his grandfather’s attention. He settled back down with the young boy nestled against him as comfortably as a potato covered in cream. Sirius’s smile darkened, like a sun-sparkled lake suddenly covered by clouds.

“There was one particular time. The most important time. He figuratively swept me off my feet at the same time he practically had to hold me upright.”

Remus caught his breath. Surely Sirius didn’t mean…

_He was too tired, too worn out and worn down. His body eroded to emaciation. His mind curled in to feed on itself, choking him with the bitter dregs of his mistakes. But, he’d found some warped thread of strength that had pulled him out and kept him creaking along for months on his self-imposed task of vengeance and protection._

He’d been so certain he’d find and kill Wormtail. But, circumstances thwarted him again and again. Tonight, though, he thought his luck had turned. Wormtail had practically fallen into his hands. All he had to do was drag the disgusting, little traitor to the privacy of the Shrieking Shack, wait for Harry to show up looking for his red-haired friend, and he’d be able to explain everything.

It had all gone to hell.

Harry stood over him, quivering with rage, wand pointing at his chest and murder in his eyes. He’d die at the hands of James’s son. Even in his exhausted state, he could almost laugh at the twisted justice of it all. Actually, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’d come so close, and now it was slipping away. His words hadn’t reached Harry. He couldn’t make the boy understand. Did it matter anymore?

“Going to kill me, Harry?”

He had nothing, except the rags on his body and the few bitter truths he had kept hidden in his frozen heart. He was innocent of murder, but he’d practically signed his dearest friends’ death warrants. He was not a traitor, but he’d suspected another of treachery. He had sworn to protect this boy, but hadn’t seen him since infancy. He loved Remus Lupin, and had earned Remus’ undying hatred. 

It didn’t matter anymore.

He had no one on his side; no one who believed in him or had even given him a thought once he had been thrown into prison. Not his lover, not the people he’d fought with, side by side, against high odds. They’d all accepted his guilt without question. They believed he had shown his true colors, as black as the deepest abyss. They believed he had ultimately remained true to his blood, his Black blood, and not to his heart or soul. They believed him capable of betraying to their deaths the people who had been his surrogate family.

It wasn’t so farfetched. After all, he’d believed that Remus, his beloved Remus, was a spy and a traitor. Remus, the person who had made him a better man, who had lit him from within with a fiery passion he thought would never die, who shared his successes and helped him through his failures, who he had sworn to love through this life and whatever lay beyond. He had remained true to that, Sirius thought with bitter satisfaction. He had never stopped loving Remus, even when he had tossed and turned through sleepless nights trying to rationalize the evidence of Remus’s treachery. 

False evidence, it turned out. Some false evidence vanishes. Other false evidence puts one in Azkaban. And even there, cuddled in the cold embrace of the Dementors, every moment alive with the pain and horror of every wrong he had committed, he still sheltered one small ember of his love from the breath of the icy hell surrounding him.

He’d done it alone. He’d survived alone. Not well, certainly. But he’d survived, even if he was more corpse than living man. He’d clung to his sanity alone, fighting for it moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, until he’d found his way to where his heart froze, but his body lived on, drinking the putrid air and feeding on the sounds of others’ madness.

What did it matter, in the end? He’d trusted that his wits would somehow save him, as they had so often in that distance past where he’d been young and handsome and vital. He was no longer that man. He was hardly a man at all and soon, he’d be only a shell. They would hand him over to the Dementors. Idly he wondered if he’d recognize the wraith that would suck out his soul.

The fight seeped out of him as he stared up at Harry, waiting for whatever would happen next.

Feet pounded, the girl screamed, and the door burst open. 

“Expelliarmus!” Shouted Remus Lupin, neatly grabbing all the wands and moving across the room to stand over him.

A lifetime had passed since he’d looked into those expressive hazel eyes. He’d never forgotten them, although his memories of seeing those eyes alight with joy, intelligence, lust, or love had disappeared behind the murky veil of the Dementors. Now they bored into his skill, flayed him with such fierce determination, such fiery purpose that he felt trapped, pinned where he lay defenseless. 

“Where is he, Sirius?”

Words deserted him. All he could do was stare back. Stare and hope that somehow Remus would read him, would see through all of the torture and guilt and madness of the last twelve years and somehow recognize his innocence.

Very slowly, he raised his hand and pointed at the red-haired boy.

Remus glanced at Harry’s friend and then his eyes snapped back even more forcefully to Sirius’s face. So intent was his scrutiny that Sirius didn’t dare twitch a muscle. For the first time in years, he felt connected to another human being. He felt that Remus was in his head, picking out the twisted threads of everything that had happened and somehow weaving them into a recognizable tapestry. 

“But then…” Remus muttered, “why hasn’t he shown himself before now? Unless…unless he was the one…unless you switched without telling me?”

Very slowly, his eyes glued to Remus’s, Sirius nodded.

Harry said something that didn’t register. What mattered was the lowering of Remus’s wand. What mattered was the emotion that slowly crystallized in Remus’s eyes.

Belief. Remus understood and believed him.

He wasn’t alone anymore. The realization struck him like a blow to the stomach. The breath left his body and he went limp under the overwhelming feeling that somehow he might yet be saved. He felt as he had when Padfoot, shaking with exhaustion after swimming forever through the frigid North Sea, had tumbled through the waves onto a deserted beach. Had they found him then, he could not have escaped. Utterly bereft of strength, a child could have dragged him back to Azkaban. 

Remus reached down and his warm, firm grasp closed around the wasted flesh of Sirius’s hand. He hauled the fugitive to his feet with no more effort that was needed to lift a broom. In the split second before his arms embraced Sirius, his eyes changed yet again. And what Sirius saw made his knees give out.

Love. He saw love.

“Remus,” he murmured, unable to say more, trembling in the effort to keep his footing. 

“It’s okay now.” Remus whispered. Only his strong arms and steady body kept Sirius upright. How fitting that the first human touch and the first kind words in his ear after years of emptiness should come from his lover. 

With a crack, his frozen heart started to beat again.

Sirius stared down at his hand, once more clasped in Remus’s as the memory of that one weightless, wondrous moment swept over him. The room was completely silent, except for the crackling of the fire. 

“I believe in you, Grandpa.” Antares said in a small voice. His face was all blue-eyed solemnity as he tilted his head back to look up at his grandfather.

Sirius half hugged, half lifted the boy closer to place a kiss on his forehead. “Thank you. I love you very much.” Sirius cuddled the boy against his chest and leaned into the sudden pressure around his shoulders as he and Antares were enveloped in Remus’s arms.

“Love is indestructible, isn’t it?” asked Harry quietly. “When you truly love someone, you love them forever and nothing can destroy that. Not evil, not pain, not long and lonely separation.”

Sirius’s gaze touched the face of everyone in the room, much as Remus’s had done earlier. He smiled unexpectedly, and beneath the salt and pepper hair and the face creased with time and hardship, Remus saw the vestiges of the impetuous, impossibly handsome wizard he’d fallen for so many years ago. That old, familiar thrill fluttered in his stomach.

“I’m the luckiest man alive,” Sirius said again, his smile brilliant. “I ended up here, in the midst of the most wonderful family I could ever have wanted. I’ve been rewarded beyond anything I had the right to expect.”

And suddenly everyone was talking at once, weaving a verbal net that tied them all together; fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and lovers. Their bonds had sprung from a fertile field of love, nurtured and strengthened by experience and understanding. Remus and Sirius had willingly given, and continued to give, all they had to their children, whether blood relatives or sons and daughters of the heart. And their children, by birth or by the firm bonds of love, knew it and honored them for it.

Later that night, buried under the covers, Remus hovered at the edge of sleep. Sirius pottered around their room getting ready for bed. 

“We’re old, Remus,” he said making a rueful face as he slid into bed.

“What clued you in?” Remus chuckled, although he suspected the answer had to do with both of them wanting to go to sleep and not indulge in wild, energetic sex. Or even quiet, gentle love-making.

“Pajamas.”

Remus’s eyes opened fully, gleaming in the light of the fireplace. “And here I thought it was because spending the day opening presents, eating and visiting with family wore us out.”

“That, too. What I meant was that we always wear pajamas now. We used to simply shed our clothes and fall into each others’ arms, all naked and warm.”

“It’s December. It’s too cold to go without pajamas.”

Sirius sniffed. “At least they hide those stringy, saggy bits on my arms and legs that used to be muscles.”

A surprised chortle flew from Remus’s lips. “You don’t have to worry, my love. I still find you very attractive, stringy bits and all.”

“You need stronger glasses.” Sirius slid his arms around his lover and kissed him tenderly. 

“I love you to pieces, Sirius.”

“I love you, too.”

They did not have many years left, Remus reflected again as sleep crept over him, nestled warmly against Sirius. But, their hearts would be light when their time came. And their legacy would live on in their children.

“Merry Christmas, Re.”

“Merry Christmas, Paddy.”


End file.
